


Pandora's Box

by concernedlily



Series: Entropy sequence [3]
Category: Kingsman: The Secret Service (2015)
Genre: Angst, Dom/sub, M/M, Safewords
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-16
Updated: 2015-12-16
Packaged: 2018-05-07 03:09:10
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,313
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5441246
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/concernedlily/pseuds/concernedlily
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>We always hurt the ones we love.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pandora's Box

Eggsy woke at a noise. He wasn’t at home, he could tell from the space of the room around him and the country-silence, and then he heard the muffled step of expensive shoes on expensive carpet and put it all together: he was in his and Harry’s private rooms at HQ, and Harry was back from his mission.

“How did it go?” he said. He clicked the bedside lamp on and squinted against the flare of light. Harry looked stone-faced, pulling his jacket off with stern almost angry moves, jerky and unlike him. He didn’t turn to Eggsy.

“Badly,” Harry said shortly. His cufflinks clinked into their dish on the dressing table.

“Should we be going for the nuclear bunker?” Eggsy said. He meant it jokily, but knowing Kingsman, and the look on the side of Harry’s face he could just see, made it waver at the last second into an almost serious question.

Harry barked an unhappy laugh. He looked at Eggsy finally; his gaze skated along the bare skin showing above the duvet. “Not that badly.”

“You want…?” Eggsy said. He flipped the covers back and curled a hand round his cock, soft in the pajama pants he was wearing but getting interested, just because Harry was _here_ , and looked good and smelled good. Sex was the best thing just after a mission, especially a tough one: he always ended up relaxed and loose, able to let it go and get a good enough night’s sleep for everything to look better in the morning.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Harry said. His voice was clipped and tight and the furious line of his shoulders looked hard as rock, painful. “I’m not sure I’m going to come to bed just yet, actually. You should go back to sleep. I didn’t mean to wake you.”

“You’re all right,” Eggsy said. He got out of bed and approached Harry slowly and calmly, the way he did strange dogs at the park when JB thought he was twice as big as he actually was and got in a scrap. He nudged in under Harry’s chin, put his arms around him and Harry sighed and returned the hug, weakly at first and then tight, breathing Eggsy in and leaning on him, letting Eggsy take some of his weight.

“Eggsy,” Harry said. He rocked against Eggsy, swaying them gently back and forth, and Eggsy felt a glint of smug satisfaction at the feeling of Harry’s cock starting to make a bulge in his trousers, against the thigh Eggsy pushed in between his legs and snugged up to his groin. It was a bit of an awkward move that way round, but Harry slouched into it, dropped his hips low and went with it.

“Let me -” Eggsy said. He kissed Harry, pushed his tongue into Harry’s mouth and coaxed Harry’s into playing. Harry responded, first slowly, and then a shudder went through him and he put his hand on Eggsy’s jaw and took over, slicing their mouths together hard. Eggsy fell into it, the feeling of rightness after time apart, and said with conviction, “ _Use me_ , Harry, come on.”

“Eggsy…” Harry muttered. He pulled away and looked into Eggsy’s eyes, thumbing his cheekbone. Eggsy smiled at him, turning into it, already falling into the pleasurable fog of _good_. Harry sighed, his lips brushing against Eggsy’s forehead. “Okay. Take your pajamas off and get me another tie, please, and the lube. Then sit on the bed. Up against the headboard.”

“Gonna fuck me?” Eggsy said hopefully. “It’s been _ages_ , Harry.”

“Four days,” Harry said, with a thread of humour working its way through his voice at last. “No, you wretched floozy. I’m going to tie you up and sit on your cock, how does that sound?”

Eggsy’s jaw worked for a second. Then he managed, “That sounds okay.”

It wasn’t like it never happened - it wasn’t even rare, really - but getting _inside Harry_ was just the best, Harry bossing Eggsy round what he wanted, watching his face go red and decadent, Eggsy loved it, always there in a way he couldn’t quite keep up with when Harry was inside him or sucking him, when it was overwhelming and desperate.

He hurried to chuck the lube on the bed and skim out of his pajama bottoms. Harry threw the tie he was wearing on the bed and Eggsy kept a covert eye on him stripping out the rest of his clothes while he was at the wardrobe picking out another one. It had to be right - soft, and not a favourite that Harry would wear once a week and Eggsy would get hard every bloody time he saw it.

He felt a moment of anxiety when he turned back to the bed. Harry was sitting and his shoulders were rounded; he was rubbing his eyes. He said, “Harry?” and Harry turned to him, smiling.

“I missed you, you know,” he said, and Eggsy went and kissed him again, deep like he still had some convincing to do.

“Four days,” he said teasingly. “Sentimental old sod.”

“Cheek,” Harry said. He kissed the corner of Eggsy’s mouth. “Straight to the ropes for you, for that.” He urged Eggsy back against the headboard and Eggsy leaned against it and watched, his mind slipping quiet as Harry took each of his wrists, kissed them, and tied them to the headboard, Eggsy’s arms resting comfortably over the top of the smooth wood frames.

“Okay?” Harry said. He cupped Eggsy’s jaw and gave him a gentle closed-mouthed peck. His face was shadowed in the dim night-quiet space of their quarters, his eyes fathomless dark, and Eggsy wriggled back and nodded.

He was hard, getting on to aching, and he watched Harry open himself up with hooded eyes, losing a bit of time off and on. Being tied always did that to him; it was never tight, never anything he couldn’t have slipped out of without more than the slightest abrasion, but just something about the reminder that he needed to be still, stay where he was put and wait for Harry, made his head go peaceful and soothed.

“Okay,” Harry said again, after a while. He ducked in and kissed Eggsy firmly and then he was groaning long and low while he sank down onto Eggsy’s cock in a slow excruciatingly controlled glide. Eggsy shouted and thrust up, as much as he could with Harry’s weight in his lap. “Don’t move,” Harry said warningly and Eggsy moaned and threw his head back, everything he had narrowing down to his cock and the slick hot grip Harry’s hole had on it.

He lost time again while Harry rode him, slipping back and forth in the sensation. He didn’t know how long it was until the lust pooled in his stomach became insistent: he cried out, his hips jerking desperately. “Please,” he said, his voice thready, almost whining with the pleasure lighting up his spine. “Please, Harry.”

There was no answer. He opened his eyes. Harry was still bouncing on him, his muscled thighs lifting him up and down Eggsy’s cock in a clever grinding rhythm. His face, though - he looked lost, his eyes squeezed shut and his mouth screwed up in a contortion more grimacing than passionate. Harry’s cock was pink, hard against his stomach, but not the lovely leaking mess it usually was by this point. He was sweating, pale.

Eggsy felt the first short stab of panic. His hips faltered; Harry rode him back down to the bed, barely seeming to notice. That wasn’t right, that was wrong - it was all wrong, Harry was always completely with Eggsy when they did this, Eggsy was always the centre of Harry’s attention, making him feel needed and loved, totally held. He was never in his own head like this, like Eggsy could have been anyone.

This was what he’d wanted, Eggsy reminded himself. He’d asked Harry to use him, told him to. His wrists hurt: he realised he was pulling at the bonds. “Harry,” he said. “Harry - look at me, please.”

Harry made some vague movement with his mouth and Eggsy noticed hazily that his lips were red and swollen, bitten raw. Eggsy took a heaving breath; it came out as a sob.

He breathed in again. “Stop,” he said, on the breath out, whispered it. Harry gave no sign of having heard and Eggsy shook his wrists against the ties, the silk feeling harsh on his skin, said, “Harry, _stop_ -”

Harry tore himself up and off so abruptly Eggsy yelled with it: it had to hurt Harry and Eggsy choked on another repetition of his name. He dropped next to Eggsy like a rockfall, like his legs wouldn’t hold him any more.

Eggsy’s hips thrust again, his cock fucking the air like it hadn’t got the message the rest of him had. He made a noise horribly like a whimper. Harry glanced at him blankly and then he was fumbling at the ties, jerky as if time were going past in strobing slow motion, the knots falling apart easily under his fingers. When he leaned over Eggsy for the other wrist their bodies didn't touch but the nearness of Harry's felt cool, even clammy.

“Harry,” Eggsy pleaded. Harry fell heavily back to the bed and Eggsy threw himself down next to him, his heart beating frantically.

“You’re shaking,” Harry whispered. He looked at Eggsy with confused sad dark eyes and touched Eggsy’s cheek. “Don’t, Eggsy. I’m sorry.”

“No, it’s you,” Eggsy said uselessly. It was: Harry was trembling so hard he was moving them both, he was making the bed squeak. He curled up against Harry, wrapped his arms and legs round him like he always did afterwards, clinging, feeling small and stupid and scared. “I’m sorry - Harry - it’s all right, it’s all right.”

Harry pulled him closer, put his arms round Eggsy gratefully, tender as a bruise, and Eggsy pressed into him and held on tight.

***

“We’re still sleeping together,” Eggsy said, frowning at the bottle of beer in front of him and starting to pick at the label. Roxy sighed and twirled her glass round by the stem so the wine swirled and danced inside. “We just haven’t shagged since.”

“Which since you’re usually at it constantly is a bit troubling,” she said. She took a giant drink and her face went blissfully happy as the first mouthful went down. Her tongue when she licked her lips was already shading purple.

“Not constantly.”

“Constantly! Especially when you’re both on base for a while. You've been together six months, the shag-drunkenness is supposed to have worn off by now. Has he forgiven Merlin for taking so long to sign him off for active duty again?”

“Not really,” Eggsy said glumly. He didn’t really know the details of what had happened with the mission in Greece - Harry had told him about it and it sounded like it had been a fucking mess but not uniquely so - and he wasn’t sure why Harry and Merlin were still practically at war over it. They’d traded barbs over lunch earlier that had been so pointed Eggsy had been glad he’d been sitting between them. Half the rest of the staff had been taking bets on who would win if they went for each other's throats. “He’s fucking livid.”

“Maybe he just needs to get back on the horse,” Roxy suggested.

“The mission horse or the me horse?” He took a long drink, then another one. Harry getting back on the Eggsy horse sounded good. It took two weeks to form a habit, Eggsy had read that somewhere once, and he was starting to feel a bit worried about it: they were still sleeping wrapped up in one another, but they were both being horribly polite and shy about the resulting hard-ons and the longer it went the weirder it got.

“Either. Both. Just jump on him when you get home and see what happens.”

“That’s really helpful, Rox, thanks,” he said sourly.

“I’m not Dear bloody Deirdre, I don’t know why you’re asking me for relationship advice. Do you want to hear about the awful bloke who tried to chat me up when I went out with some of the tech girls on Tuesday?”

“Yeah, go on then,” Eggsy said. He caught the waitress’ eye and gave her a smile and a nod for another round. “It probably can’t make me more depressed than I already am.”

***

Harry was lying on the sofa watching telly when Eggsy rolled in. He transferred his attention to Eggsy and watched him wrestle his oxfords off with amused eyes.

“Just a quick drink with Roxy, was it, darling?”

“I only had three,” Eggsy protested. The way Harry was lying languid and all shapely on the sofa made his mouth go a bit dry, and then made him determined. Harry was the greatest thing that had ever happened to Eggsy - him and Kingsman, but they were basically the same - and he wasn’t going to let anything get in the way of them being so fucking happy that tiny little flower fairies would be born every time they laughed together.

He crossed over to the sofa and climbed on top of Harry, straddling Harry’s lap and anchoring himself with a slow, dirty grind. Harry propped his head up on the arm of the chair and ran his hands slowly up Eggsy’s thighs, ending up at Eggsy’s waist and helping him find a lazy, sweet rhythm.

“That’s nice,” Harry said softly. His face looked nice, open and affectionate. The News at Ten burbled on in the background: terrible things were happening in the world, and Duchess Kate had visited a playschool in a coat she’d worn before. “I’ve missed you.”

“We’ve both been here,” Eggsy said. Harry was hardening up satisfyingly under his arse and he reached up, pulled his tie off and started undoing the buttons of his shirt, watching Harry’s face go heavy-lidded and interested beneath him.

“You know what I mean. Come here,” and Eggsy bent to be thoroughly kissed, Harry’s tongue sweeping confidently into his mouth, Harry’s hands transferring to his arse and his hair, keeping them close together.

“Just this, yeah?” Eggsy said into Harry’s mouth, their lips brushing and catching, wet and plush. “Nice and simple.”

“Anything you like,” Harry said. He nipped at Eggsy’s lower lip and then licked it, to make Eggsy laugh.

He moved his hands down, clever fingers opening Eggsy’s trousers and reaching inside to smooth over his cock where it pushed hard against his shorts. There wasn’t much space down there to work but when he went for Harry’s trousers in return Harry obligingly moved his hands out the way and onto mapping Eggsy’s back, sliding up under his shirt and stroking the sweaty small of his back, their cocks pressing together with only thin underwear fabric in the way.

Eggsy liked it like this, when they wanted each other so much they stayed part-dressed, didn’t even move it to the bedroom. He liked kissing and touching and murmuring, he liked that their hands on each other felt familiar and warm and safe. He liked _Harry_ , liked his focus on Eggsy, where it should be, making it so they could give and take pleasure from each other so comfortably. He liked the tricky stuff as well but he liked that being good for Harry could be this easy, liked that he felt the most _himself_ he ever was here in Harry’s arms, coming in Harry’s capable lovely hands.

He tucked himself down on Harry after, dabbing the come off their stomachs with his shirt tails even though that made Harry tut at him half-heartedly, and then snuggling in. Harry cradled him between his long legs and Eggsy put his head on Harry’s chest, on the little hollow between Harry’s lush firm pecs where he could hear Harry’s heart. 

“We should go to bed,” Harry said drowsily. He put his fingertips to Eggsy’s mouth and Eggsy sucked them in, licked the taste of their come off them and played on and between Harry’s fingers with his tongue.

“In a minute,” he said. Bed would mean naked and cosy but it also meant moving. Right for this moment he wanted it to be just the kind forgiving language of their bodies; he wanted the love and _home_ that was the contented curve of Harry pressed tight up against him.

"All right," Harry said. Eggsy felt fingers slide into his hair and closed his eyes. "In a minute."

***

He woke up with Harry's arm round his waist and Harry's cock snugged hard up against his arse and wriggled back into it with a happy little shiver. 7am and all's well. 

He nipped out of bed to the bog and felt a bit of disappointment when he heard Harry stumble down to the kitchen and the pipes start clanking as he ran water for the kettle.

Still, patience was a virtue. Eggsy winked at himself in the mirror and got in the shower.

He purposefully dawdled his getting ready and by the time he grabbed Harry round the waist, turned him round and knelt at Harry's feet, he was naked under the robe he shrugged off to crumple on the floor, and Harry was fully dressed: they both liked that. 

He rubbed his cheek against Harry's neatly clothed package, felt it start to respond, warmth and swelling. 

"How about I say good morning properly?" he said throatily and tilted his chin up to give Harry a cheeky grin, inviting him to put his hands in Eggsy's hair and take over.

Harry gave him a strained smile back, and when he reached down for Eggsy it was to pull him up to his feet and give him a lingering, affectionate kiss. "Better not, dear boy. We'll be late."

Eggsy's mouth dropped open like a cartoon character. "So?"

"So what's wrong with being on time once in a while?" Harry said, in a weird stunted way; his gaze kept darting to Eggsy's, then sliding off again: weird.

"'Cause Merlin's delicate," Eggsy said, "and the shock might kill him."

"I think he'll cope," Harry said. "I might just have another cup of tea while you get dressed, do you want one?"

"No," Eggsy said, sulking, but as he went over to the wardrobe to start slowly putting on the gentleman and Harry made his escape downstairs, the cold anxiety he'd been so relieved last night to banish reclaimed its grip around his heart.

***

He bunked off work in the afternoon and went round to his mum's instead, texting first to check she was free. She was in a little house near the Elephant now, far enough from the estate to be out of Dean's clutches, near enough that she could still see her old mates.

Playing with Daisy helped a lot. Her little kid life was totally uncomplicated and pleasant these days, going by what she said her Lego princesses lived entertainingly batshit lives, and when she cried he could give her a biscuit and she was happy again. Shame it didn't work on grown-ups.

"What do you think, babe?" Mum said, when he'd given Daisy fishfingers and chips and beans for her tea and stuck her in front of a Peppa DVD. "Wine o'clock?" She gave him a hopeful, guilty smile. 

"It is not wine o'clock, bloody hell, Mum," Eggsy said, tired, ignoring the nagging idea that Harry usually had his first brandy on the go by half five. "I'll make us a cup of tea, yeah? Do you want me to ring up for a curry?"

"Ooh yeah, that'd be nice," Mum said. "Thanks, love."

She didn't quite look him in the eye when she said thanks. She knew something was up with Eggsy's supposed job learning tailoring; she'd seen him injured once or twice when he couldn't avoid it and she'd recognised Harry although they didn't talk about that. But she accepted the perks, let him look after her and give Daisy the childhood she deserved, and he sometimes thought she assumed silence was her side of the bargain. He didn't come round that much anymore.

Eggsy shrugged and she went for the drawer with the takeaway menus.

He did let her open a bottle of wine once the curry arrived and Daisy was safely in bed. "Everything all right?" she said, flushed, when they were nearly finished and mopping up with the last of the naan. 

Eggsy looked at her, and once again she didn't look at him. She moved in a quick, nervy way; she reminded him of the foxes he saw more round Harry's than he had round the estate, the way they'd be running across the road and freeze in the middle with a fixed, evaluating stare at anyone passing by. 

"Yeah," he said. It slipped out in a tone designed to shut down any further conversation, to sneer at the mere fact of the interest. Like his teenage years, which had been as sullen and misbehaving as to be completely cliche, with a permanent heavy confusion hanging between them, the dissonance of Lee's photos in Eggsy's room, and Dean on the sofa.

"Yeah? Work all right?" she said, soldiering on. She hadn't done that so much, when he was younger. Harry would've said, _can you respect that she's trying_ ; Eggsy managed that better, when things were going well. 

"Yeah," he said. "Work's good, Mum, yeah."

He got up and cleared the plates, scraped the last bits of rice and sauce into the bin, and washed them up quickly. By the time he went back into the living room she'd topped up their glasses and the bottle was empty. Eastenders was just finishing on the telly, the sound turned down low. He sat down again and took a long swallow of wine.

She smiled over at him anxiously. "How's things with - with Harry?" She was tapping her nails on the wine glass, pinging. They were purple, with a tiny diamanté flower on each of the ring fingers. He looked away, back to the TV.

"Fine," he said.

"Fine," she echoed. "Good."

"Yeah," he said. He couldn't help the defensive edge to his voice and he knew she noticed it from the way she darted another look at him, her eyes searching his face without meeting his. He said, "I better get off."

"Okay, love," she said. "Thanks for coming. Daisy loves seeing you."

"I know, I'll come round more often," he said. He found his shoes and started getting himself together to leave.

"I wasn't having a go," she said. "I'm just saying."

"I know, Mum. Sorry. I'm just a bit tired."

"I've met a fella," she blurted out. Eggsy slowed down tying up his shoelaces, then stopped and looked up at her. She was a bit flushed and the look on her face was almost defiant. 

"Yeah?" he said cautiously. 

"He's nice," she said. Eggsy went back to his shoelaces; his fingers were white on them and he made himself relax. "He works in the Tesco Metro round the corner. He's night supervisor, he's got prospects, babe. Daisy likes him."

He looked up sharply. "He's already met Dais?"

She shrank back a bit and he did his best to smooth out the expression on his face.

"Just a couple of times," she said. She gave him an appeasing smile that made him feel a bit sick; he wasn't supposed to be the one who put any look like that on her face. "We took her to the park, dead simple. He pushed her on the swings."

"As long as he treats you well," Eggsy said, trying to keep doubt out of his voice. He rubbed a hand over his face, partly to hide it from her, partly to help him think. "I want to meet him."

"He's working this Sunday," she said. "Next one? I'll do a roast."

"Good, yeah," he said. His mind was already on the roster of upcoming ops, wondering if there was anything he could take, and he forced it away. He'd have to show up. Let this bloke see someone was looking after Mum and Daisy. 

"You're a good lad," she said. She came near and when he didn't move she hugged him, awkwardly. He put his arms round her, smelling the perfume he'd got her for Christmas, bundles of roses, Roxy’s recommendation.

"Tell Daisy I'll see her soon," he said. 

"Bring Harry," she said impulsively. "Make it a proper family dinner." 

He almost laughed. Quid pro quo, then: he'd leave her to her bloke he probably wouldn't much like, and she'd leave him to his bloke she definitely didn't. 

"Maybe," he said. "I'll ask him what he's got on."

***

He usually got the Tube back from his mum's, but he felt too out of sorts to be that close to strangers, like a layer of skin had come off and even a stiff breeze might hurt. He walked up to the main road instead and hung around for several minutes until a black cab went by and he flagged it down. The cabbie's wary expression turned all smiles when he clocked Eggsy's suit and heard he wanted to go back north of the river, and Eggsy was sat in the back and on his way home in short order, watching the play of the streetlights in the spring twilight.

He was already tired when he got in, and not really in the mood for anything but sinking a JD and crashing. Harry felt like one more thing to deal with: that was new, and Eggsy didn't like it.

Harry came out of the dining room while Eggsy was sat on the bottom of the stairs and taking his shoes off.

"You're late," he said. Harry didn't do accusing, but there was an edge to it. "You didn't text me back all afternoon."

"I was at my mum's," Eggsy said. He looked up and tried a smile. The falseness of it felt glaring, but hopefully it was too dark to see it didn't reach his eyes. Harry was in the dark too, silhouetted almost against the dim glow coming all the way back from the kitchen, leaning against the doorway and drying the plate he was holding. 

"Oh," Harry said. His shoulders moved against the light, just a bit. "Are you going straight to bed?"

"I was going to have a drink - a nightcap," Eggsy said. He watched Harry, although he couldn't quite make out his expression in the gloom. "Do you want something?"

"Pour me a brandy, please," Harry said. He started to turn back to the dining room. "I'll be up shortly."

Eggsy climbed the stairs slowly, counting them so he didn't have to think about anything else. He ducked into their bedroom on the way to the living room, hung his jacket up and rescued his tie from the pocket, smoothed it out and draped it neatly over the shoulder of the jacket. 

He poured two fingers of brandy for Harry from a nearly empty bottle, and a measure of JD for himself. He hesitated over it for a moment then gave it another slug, adding some Coke from the plastic two-litre bottle that lived discreetly behind the cocktail bar's worth of spirits. He sometimes felt transient in Harry's house, not like it was even on the way to becoming theirs, but he was here; Harry had made what space for him he could.

He sat on the settee and scrumpled himself into the corner, pulling his feet up under him and curling round them.

Harry came in and glanced at him, sat on the other side of the settee where Eggsy had put his drink. There was a clink as he dropped a couple of ice cubes into it from the kitchen.

Eggsy had meant it as a peace offering of sorts but Harry didn't stretch out his legs and poke his toes under Eggsy's arse like he usually did. He sat tidily with crossed legs, more the on-display way he sat at work than how he usually was at home. 

"Thanks for the drink," Harry said. It sounded stilted, formal; Eggsy looked at him and Harry looked at the blank TV.

"How is the drinks cabinet arranged?" he said abruptly. 

"Er," Harry said. "What, the spirits?"

"Yeah. The bottles."

"Geographically," Harry said. "Were you looking for something?"

"No," Eggsy said. He examined the explanation, matched it to his mental picture of how the bottles were laid out. It was true, but it wasn't the whole story: there was a level Harry wasn't giving him, about what he had and how and where the bottles were grouped together, probably something to do with Kingsman and Harry's missions. He put it aside for another time: he knew enough about Harry's professional history to work it out. 

He was suddenly assailed with doubt about whether he knew enough about how Harry's mind worked. He would have said yes, but - or would he have expected Harry to take that further step and tell him?

He wasn't sure any more, their normal rocked off its axis that night he'd told Harry to stop, weirdness there in how careful and worried Harry had been with him since, and habit not only so far away he didn't know how they'd get back to it, but so far away he couldn't exactly remember what it looked like. He'd never thought about their relationship, he'd never had to: it had always just worked.

"How are your mother and Daisy?" Harry said politely. 

Eggsy leaned his head back against the back of the sofa and stared at the ceiling. "Fine."

"Good," Harry said. "Lovely."

"Lovely," Eggsy repeated. "Christ. Are you free a week on Sunday?"

There was a pause that Eggsy pegged automatically as Harry sorting through possible hedges and excuses, then remembering Eggsy lived with him and he couldn’t get away with anything he wasn't prepared to actually spend a week on Sunday doing and discarding them. 

"I think so," he said, once the silence had become conspicuous. "Did you have something in mind?"

"Mum invited us for Sunday lunch," Eggsy said heavily. He could see Harry's chest move as he suppressed a sigh. "Her new fella's coming."

"You didn't say she was seeing someone," Harry said, surprised into a natural reaction. 

"I didn't know," Eggsy said. "She just told me today."

"It must be serious, if she already wants you to meet him."

Egsy shrugged, the soft cotton of his shirt catching against the worn fabric of the couch. "Serious for her isn't like you think, yeah? First date to live-in takes all of a week, on the estate. 'Til the bird finds out he's still shagging Karen from downstairs on the side and goes mental."

There was another silence. "Your mother and Dean?" Harry said, doubtfully. 

Eggsy sighed. "My mate Ryan. Sarah called Karen a fucking slag in the middle of Iceland, they're still not speaking."

"It rather sounds like us," Harry said, in a careful way. "Other than Karen, of course."

Eggsy took a long drink, licked up a drop of liquor sliding down the side of the tumbler. He'd never thought of it in that pattern, but Harry wasn’t wrong: Eggsy had a flat, and in the six months since he and Harry had sorted themselves out he’d spent maybe four nights there. He said, "Yeah, well."

Harry got up and opened the door to the balcony, leaned on the doorframe and stared out with his drink hanging elegantly from one hand. A few weeks ago Eggsy would have got up and gone to stand with him, stepping in close and letting Harry put his arms around him, or more likely told Harry to shut the bloody door it was freezing. Today he looked into his drink and bit his lip until it felt sore.

“ _Is_ that what happened with your mother and Dean?” he said. 

“Not really,” Eggsy said. He had the sudden sure, stupid feeling he needed to tread carefully: Harry felt distant, simultaneously unknowable and entirely predictable, like a walk home from school with the class bully lying somewhere in wait along the way. 

Harry was in shadow again, the line of his shoulders tense. “It was fast, I suppose. He moved in after six months. I was in my last year of primary. It was all right for a bit. I liked seeing Mum smile.”

"Then what?" Harry said. He turned back to the room, looked at Eggsy. 

"He was nice," Eggsy said slowly. "Until he wasn't."

Harry didn't flinch, not outwardly. He just said, in a voice as raw and awful as the dead of winter, "We have to end this."

“End what?” Eggsy said blankly; it genuinely didn’t make sense.

Harry’s mouth twisted, and then it did.

“What?” he said again. Dread crawled down his throat and gripped his heart. “What? No. Harry -”

“I think it’s for the best,” Harry said. He wiped over his mouth and the tiny bit of Eggsy’s mind that was always Kingsman noted absently that his hand was shaking.

“No,” Eggsy said. He got up, knocked his drink from his lap to the carpet, where it thudded and the inch of liquid inside started to soak into the carpet. Fuck it: they could move the couch forward.

He stepped towards Harry and Harry stepped back too, like a dance, stumbled over the step to the balcony, came back into the room. “The fuck are you even talking about? For the _best_ -”

“I hurt you,” Harry said. His eyes were wide, dark, the light reflecting off his glasses. He stepped towards Eggsy, but only so he could shut the balcony door, carefully, like it fucking mattered if the neighbours heard them having a row. “The other week, after the operation.”

“I knew you were obsessing over that,” Eggsy said, his chest tight and burning with anger and shame and fear. “You didn’t, Harry - it was me, I shouldn’t’ve - you _stopped_ , we stopped. We’re not splitting up over that. No.”

“No?” Harry said. “I can’t trust myself. I can’t predict you, I end up… I hurt you. And if I can’t trust myself, then yes; this has to end.” He sounded awful, scraped and sorry and sad, and the lines in his brow that Eggsy liked to stroke and soothe when they were in bed together were geologically furrowed. Eggsy wanted to reach for him, but when he went to Harry twitched away and that hurt so much to see Eggsy had to stop himself from trying it again.

“You don’t hurt me,” Eggsy said, voice rising. He stood in the middle of the room, lost and useless. The walls felt like they were swaying alarmingly, moving in; he felt small, like an ant with the shadow of a shoe growing around him. “You never have.”

“What if I do?” Harry said. He closed his eyes. “What if I want to?”

It was a nearly inaudible confession and it sent Eggsy a step towards him with confusion and urgency. “What? We don’t even do that stuff -”

“I’m not talking about hitting you,” Harry said. Eggsy flinched, partly from it being said, just out there like that, and partly from the unfamiliar horrible distress breaking out of Harry’s voice. “I’m talking about - Christ, taking you over, Eggsy. Trying to tell you what to do, how to do it, when and where and how -”

Eggsy was shaking his head, although the unstoppable coldly intelligent part of his brain was unrolling examples efficiently. 

Harry telling him how to dress, deciding what to do of an evening and remembering to ask if it had been okay just before bed, helping Eggsy plan his operations when Eggsy would end up bowing to his greater experience and ruthlessness. 

“I don’t know what the fuck you mean,” he said anyway, saw Harry catch the lie and give another of those dead smiles. Eggsy said urgently, “That's just a bit of fun.”

“At the beginning, it was,” Harry said and Eggsy was frightened by the remoteness in his eyes, the regret there. “I know it is just that, to you. But for me - I’d do it more, if I could -”

“You never said,” Eggsy said, feeling shaky and slow, as breathless and hurt as if he were curled on the floor, blows raining down.

“How could I?” Harry said hopelessly. 

Eggsy stepped forward again, his hands out, beseeching, spoke over him, “Well, if you do, so fucking what? You just want to have a say in what I’m doing, know what I’m thinking, that’s _normal_.”

“It isn’t!” Harry said, loud enough that Eggsy shut up and glared at him, over the thrumming of his heart in his ears, the dim little part of himself trying to panic, trying to not hear the truth Harry was flaying out of himself for him. “It _isn’t_ , Eggsy, listen to yourself - it’s not normal, it’s not okay - is that really what you want, to be like -”

“What? To be like what?”

“To be like your mother,” Harry said, exhausted. “To have a relationship anything like hers with Dean."

“Fuck you,” Eggsy whispered. He was hunched into himself, he realised distantly: if Harry reached for him there’d be no purchase.

“I’m sorry. Eggsy, please,” Harry said, and that was unusual enough, hearing real pleading from Harry instead of coming out of his own mouth, that it stopped him cold. “Don’t make me have to be any more cruel to you, before you’ll go. Please.”

They were both thinking about the interrogation testing again. It was always there, somewhere, despite Eggsy's very best efforts: it had never entirely gone away.

"Don't do this," he said, despite that, despite all of it. "Harry. Don't do this."

"It's done," Harry said softly. “It has to be over, Eggsy. I’m sorry.”

Eggsy stared at him, at the controlled devastation of the line of his shoulders, of the bleakness in his eyes. It didn’t really hurt, not yet. Eggsy could feel the impact, but faintly, like counting the seconds between thunder and lightning and hearing the storm come closer.

Harry moved forward gingerly, moving like he was injured, measuring every movement for what it would cost. He had to pass by Eggsy to get to the door and Eggsy let him take a step past before his body screamed for him to do something and he spun, said, “ _Harry_ ,” and reached for Harry desperately and Harry turned back to him and pulled Eggsy close, hugging him fiercely, letting Eggsy bury his face in Harry’s neck and cradling his head.

“My dear boy,” Harry murmured and it sounded like it always did. He felt as precious to Harry as he ever had and it seemed unbelievable, that it was the last time, that he wouldn’t have the right to it any more, his place in Harry’s hold, this space they made when their bodies came together.

Eggsy ripped himself away as soon as he felt Harry’s skin start to become damp under his eyes. Instinct: not to let Harry see him cry, not to let him see Harry weak; in the space of minutes he’d gone from being shelter to being the dark cold night. He turned away and rubbed his face; his knees felt wobbly and he groped for the sofa, dropped back onto it and bent over the arm, around the pit in his stomach.

He felt Harry’s hand on the nape of his neck, scratching lightly and raking up into Eggsy’s hair before it fell away. He heard Harry’s unsteady breathing slow, become regular, coming under Harry’s perfect resolve. By the time Harry left the room he sounded totally normal. 

The front door shut. Eggsy curled up more on the sofa, and then when it became clear Harry wasn’t coming back to say what a terrible mistake he’d made and could they just forget the whole evening, he stretched out and went to sleep, his eyes wet-hot and swollen and his body tingling pain all the way down to his fingers and toes.

***

Eggsy came into the shop the next morning looking like a fucking awful advertisement for their wares. He was wearing the suit carelessly, no tie and top two buttons undone, a cap jammed incongruously on to hide the wreck of his hair and shadow his eyes. He’d added brandy to his morning coffee and then given the coffee up and just drunk the alcohol. 

He’d clutched the glass too tight, stood in front of the wardrobe, contemplating both his suits of armour. The fuck-you of showing up to today’s all-table meeting looking the perfect Kingsman, all sharp collar and sharp smile, or the fuck-you of going straight back to his old gear, the trainers and hoodie.

It had made him late. His current look was a hopeless halfway between the two. He just looked awful, and maybe that was the kind of fuck-you Harry would feel worst about, that he’d messed Eggsy up so much he couldn’t even dredge up his pride and pretend he was fine.

Christopher pursed his lips at Eggsy. He said, “Good morning, Lamorak,” and gestured him to the stairs. “Merlin asked if you’d be so good as to pop in to see him before the meeting.”

“Yeah,” Eggsy muttered, avoiding Christopher’s eyes. His body ached with a dull, surprised sort of misery: Harry saying _I’m sorry_ kept coming back to him with an ugly spiking jolt, each time another brick piled onto a wall rising purposefully up around the memory of how good it was, how happy he’d been.

He banged into Merlin’s office without knocking. He meant to throw himself into the visitor’s chair but his knees wobbled again and he almost collapsed there instead.

“Harry turned up at the estate late last night,” Merlin said. He swung his chair around and fixed Eggsy with a flat stare; Eggsy felt like Harry’s butterflies must, seeing a big grim creature coming for them with the pin. “Shit, you look about as good as he did. Had a row?”

“You could say that,” Eggsy said, trying not to sound as fucking bitter and wrung-out as he felt. He took his cap off and ran his hands through his hair, scrubbed them down his face. “We’ve split up. He split up with me.”

“Oh,” Merlin said. 

“‘Oh’?” Eggsy said. He couldn’t help sending Merlin a flat, scornful look. “Fuck’s _sake_.”

Merlin sighed. He glanced at the screens blinking what looked like a new weaponry spec, a half-written mission briefing, and an IM conversation, and hit a couple of buttons: they went black and quiet and he came back around to Eggsy.

They sat in silence for a minute. Eggsy stared at his knees. Merlin sighed again and pushed his full mug of mahogany-shaded tea over to where Eggsy’s elbow rested on his desk.

“I’m sorry,” he said. He leaned forward and steepled his fingers, looking at Eggsy with steady sympathy. “I know how bloody difficult he is, but he seemed - happy, I thought. You both did.”

“We were,” Eggsy said. He took the mug; he hated tea as strong as Merlin liked but the small gesture felt almost unbearably kind and he clung to it. He took a long drink, looking up at the ceiling and concentrating on making the prickle in his eyes go away. “Well. I was.”

“No, he was too. He holds his cards close to his chest, does Harry, but I’ve not seen him with anyone the way he was with you.” He reached out, clocked the way Eggsy eyed his hand, and sat up again slowly, putting his hands in his lap and folding his long fingers over each other.

“I don’t want to talk about this,” Eggsy said. He didn’t know if Merlin thought he was being kind, but it felt like hot pokers poised at the edge of his fingernails.

“Fair enough. Everyone else will talk. You know that.” Merlin made an apologetic grimace.

“Yeah,” Eggsy said. He frowned down at his tea, then schooled his face back into neutrality. Kingsman liked to pretend it was above everything, but human nature was never that far away from Sarah and Karen and gossip down the aisles of Iceland.

“You’ll be able to work with him,” Merlin said keenly, back to business. “I don’t have enough agents for anyone to spit the dummy over their personal lives.”

“Yeah,” Eggsy said again, trying to keep any despair at the idea out of his voice. Merlin nodded and turned back around; his system flared back into life. 

Nobody in Kingsman really had a personal life, anyway, not that could be split from Kingsman so easily: it was too intense, too much a closed little world. Things spilled over in all directions. Work affected life which was work which became life.

“Merlin,” Eggsy said, slowly, testing the words out as they came to him. Merlin’s fingers faltered on the keys. “Why wouldn’t you clear Harry for active duty, after his last mission?”

“Did something happen, after that mission?” Merlin said. He didn’t turn around. Eggsy watched the IM window scroll down in the reflection on Merlin’s glasses, Merlin’s profile lit by the screens.

“We haven’t been right since,” Eggsy said, still feeling out the situation, things starting to fall into place, easy, like being a kid again in gymnastics competitions and thinking three moves ahead, sticking the landing at the end. “You probably noticed.”

“Hardly my business,” Merlin said briskly, but he didn’t go back to typing. The weapons spec screen blinked back to sleep.

“We’re your business,” Eggsy said. He found he was slipping into the silky, refined tones he used on missions, another notch up from the Estuary accent he usually used round HQ. “We got together ‘cause of you. After I did the interrogation testing on him.”

Merlin slumped back in his chair. “I didn’t sign him off because I was worried about him. You know that mission went badly.”

“It wasn’t Harry’s fault.”

“Neither were the ones you used on him in the testing, since you bring it up.” Merlin faced Eggsy again and Eggsy examined his face, coolly, letting his instincts interpret it before he let thought introduce itself. He wasn’t lying, not yet, but he was evasive, and Eggsy narrowed his eyes and tried to drop any pretence, the way he’d seen Harry do it, let himself show simply that he could choose to be dangerous. It didn’t have much effect on Merlin but Eggsy could see him recognise the move; Merlin nodded slowly, lifted his chin. He said, “Did you know what those ops had in common, when I suggested them?” 

Eggsy had thought he had. “They went wrong. Messy.” That wasn’t quite right. Merlin waited while he looked into his tea again, swirling it like it had tea leaves he could read. He said slowly, knowing it still wasn’t quite right but not sure how else to put the complex mix of happenstance and misreading and bloody awful luck that had ruined the operations he’d picked to talk about during the testing: “They weren’t - gentlemanly.”

“No, not quite,” Merlin said, although Eggsy could see an appraising look in his eyes. “They went wrong, yes.” He paused and Eggsy found he was sitting up straighter, attentive, barely even drawing breath, waiting to hear something significant. “Harry lost control of them. He doesn’t like losing control, never has. Hates surprises. He doesn’t… deal with it very well.”

“Oh,” Eggsy said, letting it out on a breath. That - did feel significant. But for what? He and Harry were over. He didn’t need this insight into Harry any more, and he felt vaguely guilty about getting it, like Merlin was unfairly picking sides.

“He wasn’t dealing with it very well again, so I thought it best he take some time off,” Merlin said. He was watching Eggsy closely now. “This isn’t news to you, come on.”

“No,” Eggsy admitted. He wouldn’t have put it like that, but it made sense, the way Merlin framed it. Harry had been so - angry, about the op, had taken it so personally when hadn’t gone as he’d expected.

And then, Eggsy realised, his own first move had been to ask for sex, like Harry got the same things out of the way they were in bed as he did, took the same reassurances. Mixing Harry’s lack of control on the operation with his control of Eggsy in bed. And now here they were.

“He’s been quite angry with me about it,” Merlin said. Their eyes met with what Eggsy thought might be their first real understanding of the morning.

“Yeah, I noticed.” Eggsy gave a snort and drank up the tea, closing his eyes and letting it wash the bad taste out of his mouth, too-strong and soothing.

“Not as bad as he was after the testing,” Merlin said, then because he was an arse and didn’t know when to leave well enough alone, added, “I don’t know if you noticed _that_. You were walking round with bowlegs and stars in your eyes.”

“Fuck off,” Eggsy said, without heat, although he could feel it simmering, somewhere in the middle of the conversation. “I did notice. I knew he was angry with you, we talked about it.” It felt childishly satisfying, saying that: Harry might not be Eggsy’s now, but he had been, once; he and Harry had had secrets, a world of their own outside Kingsman’s walls.

“So were you,” Merlin said, not tentatively, just stating until-now unspoken fact.

“You set me up,” Eggsy said. The words had been in his mouth for six months: it felt like they should have floated out in little flashing neon letters. They didn’t, but they hung there in the silence between them as if they had. “The interrogation testing. You knew exactly what you were doing, winding me up like that and watching me go. You fucked us both over.”

“Yes,” Merlin said. It was straightforward but not dismissive; there was a soft resignation in his eyes and his mouth was thin and set, unhappy. Eggsy believed him when he said, “I am sorry, you know. I don’t think I told you that. I don’t feel good about it.”

“But you don’t regret it,” Eggsy said, and that was unspoken fact, too.

“No. It was necessary.”

Eggsy outright chuckled this time. He looked over Merlin’s shoulder, tried to settle his expression into ease, again. “‘Shoot the dog.’”

Merlin inclined his head. “Something like that.”

“This isn’t much of a surprise, then, us splitting up. Is it?” Eggsy challenged him. It felt weird but inevitable, like inviting someone into a room and realising they’d been sat in a corner the whole time. “Me and Harry, you know what we were… doing. _Doesn’t bloody like losing control_. Jesus Christ.”

Merlin looked serious and now Eggsy couldn’t detect any lie at all as he said, “No. It’s a shame, Eggsy. I’m sorry it hasn’t worked out, I hoped it would. It was good for Harry, for a while. For you as well, I think. But it’s not a surprise.”

“You’ll keep an eye on him,” Eggsy said. The words felt like they creaked out: they hurt to say, any possibility of denial abandoned, the sadness of what he’d lost swarming through the conversation and crashing here. “Won’t you?”

“I always do,” Merlin said gently. “My eyes are everywhere.”

“Yeah, all right,” Eggsy muttered. He drank the last of the tea and cradled the empty mug in his hands, watching it shake.

Merlin glanced at the clock. “I’ve got to get along to start the meeting. Take your time, lad.” Merlin got up and rested a broad, warm hand on Eggsy’s shoulder and Eggsy felt himself relax under it, let the corners of his mouth turn up a tiny bit. 

There wasn’t much choice: if he took against Merlin - well, then Kingsman really would be lost to him, much more so than just being at odds with Harry. 

Merlin grabbed his jacket from the back of his chair and put it on as he went and opened the door to his office, gesturing someone inside as he left. Eggsy started to get up, but it was Roxy coming inside, looking back after Merlin, confused. She looked good, hair loose and shiny, her pinstriped skirt suit cut to within an inch of its life, her stilettos high: he wasn’t the only one in fuck-you mode.

Her face changed to alarm as soon as she saw Eggsy, then crumpled slowly into sympathy. He just about saw it as he pulled her close, put his arms around her waist and leaned his forehead on her stomach, swallowing back the noise that wanted to come out of his throat.

“Eggsy,” she said. “Merlin said to keep you busy this afternoon - have you and Harry...”

He nodded against her tummy, couldn’t speak, and she petted his hair, making sad soothing shushes that against all the odds did actually make him feel the tiniest bit better. Harry had always been his way into Kingsman, how he made sense of it all: without him, it felt as alien as the first time he’d walked into the dorm and into Charlie’s sneers. But Roxy was was on his side. 

It was the same reason that he had a basic level of trust in Merlin he’d never be able to shake: they’d been through the crucible of V-Day together and they were bound in ways he never could be with anyone else.

“We’ll go to the pub after the meeting. Straight away,” she promised. 

“Cheers, Rox,” he said. He pulled himself upright, tried flashing her a smile. “You’re a mate.”

“He was never good enough for you,” she said with conviction. “Plenty more fish in the sea. His loss. Better to have loved and lost. Who needs a man anyway. Do you feel better yet?”

He surprised himself with a chuckle: he didn’t feel better, exactly, but the world felt a little bit brighter. “Yeah. Bastard.”

“Bastard,” she agreed. “Are you going to be okay for this meeting?”

“Deffo,” he said. “Can’t give them the satisfaction, can we, girl?”

“Absolutely not,” she said. She smiled at him, leaned down and gave him a kiss on the forehead and then rubbed away the lipstick smudge with her thumb.

He stood up. “Do I look all right?”

She straightened his tie knot for him, smoothed down his lapels, and said, “You don’t look completely awful. Don’t throw anything at him. Or Merlin. Or make sarcastic comments. Or cry.”

“I’m not going to fucking _cry_ ,” Eggsy said. “Okay. It’s okay. I just have to - control myself.”

“That’s the spirit,” she said. “Stiff upper lip.”

He opened the door to Merlin’s office for her. As they went down the corridor to the table room her hand found his, squeezing his cold fingers.

“Lancelot, Lamorak,” Merlin said. “Late again.”

He gave Eggsy a piercing look and Eggsy looked back calmly. “Sorry,” he said, and Roxy echoed it. She took his usual place next to Harry and nudged Eggsy into hers. He slouched down and Percival’s green flickering figure, in the opposite seat, gave Eggsy an odd look.

He felt the weight of Harry’s gaze on him, but when he looked back Harry was looking over his shoulder at the screen, glasses on, inscrutable. He looked like shit, the way he did when he hadn’t slept more than an hour or two all night.

Not Eggsy’s problem any more. He put his hands in his lap and dug his fingernails into his palm.

“Gentlemen,” Merlin said, and Eggsy focused on his voice. There was work to be done.


End file.
